


Ritual Union

by bazaar



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: (as if it was possible to write about these two without any angst), Angst, F/F, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-09-15 04:12:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16926294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bazaar/pseuds/bazaar
Summary: Time, they say, heals all wounds.





	1. Chapter 1

She’s betrayed herself, sitting here.

When she’d received the message, well. She hadn’t known what to think. Years ago, a younger woman would have ripped it to shreds, burnt it, danced around the flames.

Now, she’s tired. Her muscles are sore, her bones are tired, her head aches. She knows a skiff from every angle now, all of the formations and defenses she’d once been too inattentive to bother with. Those things seemed unimportant then, with the tastes of power she’d only seen as if looking through a telescope. Closer, the realness of that authority in her own hands has been too great for indifference. She’s been a leader for years. Powerful, important.

Lonely.

The slip of paper is wadded up in her hand. She’d crumbled it when she’d first received it. Then she’d noticed the bin she’d tossed it in again and again and _again_ until it couldn’t taunt her anymore and she’d given in. In her hands then, it felt like lead. The thick lines of a penmanship she knew as well as her own, like scars she’d hoped to forget.

_Catra,_

She leans back against the wall of the corridor. She breathes. It feels like she can’t.

_I can’t demand this of you, but I can ask._

The air in the temple is stale. It burns on its way in, and out.

_Would you meet me?_

She closes her eyes.

_I don’t have the words to explain myself now._

In, and out.

_I hope I will then._

In. Out.

_Yours,_

_Adora_

When she opens her eyes, there’s a figure on the other side of the chamber.

“Hey, Adora,” she says, and her voice sounds foreign.

For a moment, they’re still. Standing on opposite sides of the room, like there’s a chasm between them. In many ways, there is. Catra watches the rise and fall of the other woman’s chest. Shallow breaths. She knows they feel the same here. She doesn’t, however, know if she can admit that.

Adora licks her lips, takes three tentative steps forward. “Catra,” she says, and at the sound of her own name, Catra is _ashamed_ at the overwhelming sense of longing that knocks hard against her chest. She doesn’t show it, lets Adora continue instead, “I wasn’t sure if you’d come.”

“Yeah, I had a free day. Let Scorpia deal with all the diabolical scheming,” she says. She means it to be scathing; it falls short. “You gonna tell me why you asked me all the way out to the middle of nowhere? I hate this place.”

“It’s nicer than the Fright Zone,” Adora retorts, “better lit, too.”

“Oh, what, the Princess of Power is an interior designer now? I thought you people were getting sloppy, but that’s _awful_.”

“Excuse me for wanting a little light in my life,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. Her tone is light. Waxen, almost. She’s forcing it, just as much as Catra had forced her jibes. “I’m thinking of redecorating my room like this.”

“Like a depressing dungeon?”

“Like an _elegant temple._ ”

Catra scoffs, agitated now. She’s tired of this already. “Sure.”

Adora uncrosses her arms, making her way across the room. She stops several feet short of where Catra leans against the wall, and for a moment Catra can imagine herself slicing through the air with her claws. It hangs so thick around the the two of them. Every step Adora takes towards her makes Catra feel claustrophobic, antsy, but she can’t bring herself to stop her.

“Maybe you could take a few pointers from this place,” Adora begins. _The same topic? For fuck’s sake._ “I think you could—“

“What the hell did you want to talk about, Adora?”

She sees her words land, right at the center of Adora’s chest. Her face goes stony, her blue eyes cold and bright. Catra watches, so intently, as Adora searches. She _sees_ how lost the other woman is, sees the catalogue of emotions Adora rifles through. She knows that look, and she knows that feeling. She knows what it means to be so lost that even when the answer is staring her in the face, fear wins out and she turns away. 

But Adora isn’t searching through her own mind. No, she’s focused on Catra. Adora is looking through _her._ Like a mirror, like a window.

“I don’t know what to say,” Adora finally decides on, although it’s less of a decision than Catra would have liked.

She shakes her head. “I didn’t come all the way out here for ‘I don’t know,’ Adora. You didn’t ask me to come here for ‘ _I don’t know_ ’. Say it. What do you want?”

“I don’t know, Catra.”

“Say it.”

“I don’t know!” Her eyes are wild now, searching desperately. She _does_ know. She doesn’t have the words. Neither does Catra. 

How can she? How could she possibly find a way to organize five years of agonizing emotional turmoil into a single conversation? How could she begin to make a list of every little thing Adora has done to hurt her? She’s not the one who asked for this—she’s the recipient of the request. There’s nothing that dictates how she’s supposed to handle this situation.

“Figure it out,” Catra presses, the anxiety rising in her chest, “figure out what you have to say to me.”

Adora worries at her lip, a tic she’d picked up when they were kids. The reminder is not welcome.

“How long have we been fighting this war?”

“If you asked me all the way out here for a surrender you’re gonna be—“

“No,” Adora interrupts, firm but not angry. The tone is jarring against Catra’s thoughts. “No. I just meant… we’ve been fighting for so long, Catra. I think I just… I wanted to see you.”

“You wanted to see me.” It’s not a question. She has to repeat it to comprehend what she’s just heard. “You saw me in Thaymor. And Salineas. _And_ at Bright Moon—“

“Across a battlefield, sure. That’s the way it’s been.”

“That’s the way it _is._ ”

“I wanted to see you without a fight, I think.” She looks Catra up and down. Her gaze burns. “I didn’t bring my sword.”

_That_ takes Catra back. Adora’s right. There’s no hilt, peeking out from over her shoulder. Of course, it could be a trick. The rebellion might have devised some new way to conceal her weapon. But with the way Adora is looking at her, Catra knows that isn’t the case. She knows what Adora looks like when she’s lying, and she doesn’t like that she remembers that too.

“That was stupid of you,” Catra says, because it was.

“Maybe,” Adora replies, shrugging, like the danger of this situation doesn’t faze her.

On one hand, Catra considers the possibility of just ending everything. Without She-Ra, the rebellion loses their engine. Adora’s guard is up, but her defenses are sparse. It’s the easy answer. Five years ago, it wouldn’t have been a question. Five years ago, wild with hatred borne of bone-deep pain, Catra would have struck with all she had. She would have taken the opportunity with vigor. She would have been glad to do it. Now, however, looking at Adora as a woman—a _grown_ woman—she feels something much softer than that blinding hatred. Or has the feeling underneath made _her_ soft? Over the years, has it been building silently, and now that she’s here, face-to-face with its catalyst, has it changed her? Is she incapable of doing what she needs to do?

She can’t be sure, she sets her defenses up again. “You asked me here to see me. You’ve seen me.”

“I have. You look tired.”

Despite herself, Catra laughs. “You really know how to charm a lady, huh?”

Adora smiles back, and the feeling seeing _that_ produces immediately shuts down her good humor. The smile is gentle and kind and makes Catra ache from head to toe. 

“I have to be honest, at least _._ I know I don’t look much better.”

She looks fantastic, actually. Tall and strong and brimming with the magic of her other form. She’s looked good before, but after all this time, the lankiness of her teenage years is gone. She’s a woman now, and she looks _good_. Catra hates it.

“Well believe it or not, I _am_ tired. Tired of standing here, wondering why I came all the way out here to have _you_ of _all people_ talk to me about _nothing_.” Again, she tries for scathing. It comes out as hurt, which makes her _livid._ “If you’ve got nothing better to say, I’m getting out of here.”

“Why _did_ you come?”

Catra had made a move to leave, but she stops. Really, she has an answer. And she _really_ can’t say it. It lands with a _thunk_ in the space between them. She won’t say it.

_I’ve missed you so much,_ her mind pleads.

“I was curious,” she says instead.

_I think about you every single day._

“I thought it might be a trap.”

Adora spreads her hands out in front of her. “You can leave whenever you want,” she says, and then cocks her head to the side, “but you have something you want to say.”

“What the hell do you know?” she snaps. No. She won’t lose her cool. She tries again, as careless as she can manage, “I don’t have anything to say to you.” 

But the emotion is rising in her chest, getting harder and harder to contain. It gets worse as Adora continues. “I promise you I didn’t come to fight,” she says, and it’s so vulnerable, so much of a submission that Catra has to take a step back. 

“Don’t say that,” she warns.

Adora blinks. “What?”

“Don’t promise me anything.”

She watches Adora _wilt._ “I’m sorry,” she says, and Catra doesn’t want to believe that she is, but the admission is so sincere she feels like she can’t breathe again. “Catra, I’m _sorry_.”

Her composure snaps like a taut wire. She sees red as she lunges at Adora, slamming against her. They go down with a _thump_ that echoes against the crystalline walls, and Catra hears the wind get knocked out of Adora’s lungs. Then she’s inches away from the other woman’s face—her rival, her enemy, and at once, her best friend. Adora’s eyes are wide, shocked, yes, but not afraid. Catra knows those eyes, knows their depths, knows how they focus and how they soften. She knows them when they’re focused and when they’re cold. Looking into them now, she’s stunned into a silence and a horrible reverence that draws every muscle in her body together. She feels smaller, although she knows has the upper hand. She wants to dig her claws into where they’re placed around Adora’s shoulders, but she can’t. She can’t do anything. She’s frozen here. Useless. Pathetic. Weak.

Those blue eyes search hers. She’s shaking.

“Catra,” Adora says, and that’s it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I edited the first chapter a little if you want to check that out!

There are ten red dots on her skin.

They don’t hurt, and she can’t see most of them unless she’s shirtless and twisting at an angle that strains her neck. She runs a finger over one of the two that land underneath her collarbone. They’re fading now, but even when they were fresh they hadn’t caused her the least bit of pain. Physically, at least. Really, they just serve as a reminder.

Adora sighs, tugging a clean shirt over her head. It’s not something she wants to think about today.

“Adora! Are you done in there?” Glimmer’s voice carries through the bathroom door, impatient, “We’re going to be late!”

“Yeah!” she responds, hurriedly gathering her hair up into a ponytail. Before she leaves, she checks her appearance in the mirror. Her eyes are glassy, bloodshot.

Custom dictates that she enjoy the day. It’s something that had taken some getting used to, but by and large, she’s happier for longer stretches of time than she ever was in the Fright Zone. She’s supported by her friends who often care more about her wellbeing than she does, she’s something of an idol as She-Ra (which, sure, is nice for the ego, but is still overwhelming at the worst of times), and she’s as healthy and strong as she can be.

Special day or not, she still has ten little reminders of her most recent failure that can’t seem to heal fast enough.

It’s only been three days since she’d snuck off to the Crystal Castle. Three days of replaying what might have been the last chance she’d ever have for… what? To turn Catra? To make her see the error of her ways? To apologize correctly? In five years, she hadn’t managed any of those things, and their meeting, so fresh in Adora’s memory is one more nail in the coffin she’s been trying to unearth for years.

_Thump thump thump._ “ _Adora!_ ” It’s Bow this time. “We have reservations!”

She takes one more fleeting look at herself to make sure that her friends won’t be able to tell that she’d been sobbing in the shower, and yanks the door open with her most winning smile.

“Let’s go!”

“ _Finally,”_ Bow sighs, pushing off the wall he’d been leaning against.

It takes a whopping _two_ seconds for Glimmer to get right in her face after that, eyes narrowed before she opens with one of Adora’s _favorite_ questions: “What’s wrong?” She studies Adora’s face. “Something’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s—“

“Oh _no_ ,” Bow gasps. “ _No._ You’re not allowed to cry on your _birthday!_ What happened? Are you okay?”

“I’m not crying! I just—“

“ _Sure_ , Adora.”

“I’m serious! I got soap in my eyes and—“ She huffs, irritated. “Can my birthday present be to _not_ get interrogated? Please?”

The pair of them eye her suspiciously. Bow speaks up, “for now.”

Glimmer hums her hesitant approval. “But it’s not your birthday forever. You’re safe, for today.”

She’ll have to take it. The two of them are impossible when they’ve sniffed something out. 

Luckily, they keep to their word on the way to dinner, and together with dear friends for a special evening out is almost enough to make her forget about everything else. _Almost_.

Bow’s recounting his most recent trip to the marketplace in Thaymor and how he’d been accosted by fans of his (he mentions it with a wave of his hand, but his smile tells a different story) when Adora feels her mind start to wander. She loves Bow and Glimmer, loves when they spend time together. Ever since her rendezvous, however, it’s like half of her mind is trying to pull focus. She can’t concentrate on Bow’s story, and doesn’t notice that she’s staring off (which, rude of her) until she feels Glimmer give her shoulder a shake.

“Okay, I know we said we wouldn’t interrogate, but I need to know,” Glimmer begins, real worry in her tone, “ _where_ is your head right now?”

Bow’s hand covers hers where it rests on the table, comforting. “You’ve been distant the past few days.”

She looks between her friends, panic rising in her chest. “Just a little anxious, I guess. It happens, you know, with… everything,” she half-lies, staring down at the food she’s barely touched. She should, given her training, be a little better at hiding things from people. But she’s never been good at hiding things from _them_.

Glimmer and Bow share a _look_ , and while it irritates Adora for a moment, she knows that her mood is concerning them. The fact that she can’t say anything makes her feel _guilty_ , but she knows exactly what their responses would be:

_“You did_ what _?”_

_“You’re_ still _dealing with this?”_

At least, it’s what she’s been telling herself. And it makes sense that those sentiments would be shared by her two closest friends. They look out for her, and her journey to the temple had not exactly been for her health.

Bow, bless his heart, graciously takes the hint and continues on with his story, keeping his hand on Adora’s. Glimmer, ever more stubborn, continues to glance over through the rest of the night, but Adora puts on the bravest face she can manage and makes it through the night.

Before bed, they give her two of the biggest, warmest hugs she’s ever received, and it takes everything she has to save her tears for her bedroom where she can be alone with her thoughts.

She sits up in bed, feels like she had when she’d first moved into the castle and couldn’t get a wink of sleep alone. She’s gotten used to it over the years, but tonight all she wants is someone to keep her company. Someone to curl up at the foot of her bed. Someone to hold her.

She remembers the feeling for a moment, and this time, when the emotion rises, pressing hard against her throat, she lets it go. She sobs brokenly into the darkness for what feels like hours. She wonders, in that time, if meeting Catra had been a mistake. It’s as if every one of her nerves is exposed—she’s been dancing around her thoughts to avoid falling back into these fits of crying, but she can’t help it. She’s raw, opened up like a wound she’d let scar over and cut fresh again. Thinking about the situation is like prodding at that wound, and she can’t seem to stop.

She’s dreamt about it every night since. Dreamt about dozens of things she could have done differently, dozens of ways the meeting could have gone, but every time she wakes up, she remembers what _had_ happened. In the mirror, the ten little dots remind her further.

And now? Now what? She’s opened this door again, this door that she’s kept closed but not locked, wondering when she’d have the strength to open it again. Maybe she doesn’t have the strength yet. She feels stronger now than ever, but alone, on nights when she lets her mind wander, all she can think about is Catra. Does that make her weak? It’s not weak to care, she knows that now, living outside of the Fright Zone. But is it weak that she _still_ cares?

After all that’s come between them, is it weak to want her best friend back?

Light Hope had told her to let go, all those years ago in the same place where they’d met again. Well, she hasn’t. She doesn’t know if she ever could.

It’s that thought that lulls her to sleep, and that thought that wakes her in the morning.

When she wakes, Glimmer is standing in the doorway.

Adora startles, naturally, because it’s not every morning she gets woken up like this. “Glimmer?” Her voice is scratchy and hoarse from sleep. “Is something wrong?”

“Yeah, with you.”

_Oh, great._ “Can I have five minutes to, like, wake up please?”

As she’s speaking, Glimmer is walking right over to her bed and plopping down right next to her. “No. Spill. What’s been going on?”

“It’s too early for this,” Adora grumbles. Really, she would have had an excuse ready at any time of the day.

Glimmer isn’t listening: “Is it about your birthday? Is it about us? The war? Bright Moon—what?”

Adora scrubs at her face with the palm of her hand. “No, no, no, and no. Glimmer, it’s not important.”

“Adora,” she says, and pauses for a very long time. Long enough for Adora to concede and meet her incredulous gaze. Then she continues, “It _is_ important. Whatever it is, it’s eating you up!”

It _has_ been eating her up. It’s obvious. It’s been nagging at her day and night and while it’s the only thing she can think of, it’s also all she _wants_ to think of. This vicious cycle where the thought of that meeting hurts enough for her to remember what it felt like to be there. To be so close then and to return to Bright Moon, feeling worse than before. Why had she done that to herself? What had she wanted? What had she _expected_?

One look at Glimmer tells her that she’s not getting out of this easily. She can’t— _won’t_ —lie to Glimmer. So she doesn’t. In fact, Glimmer gives her the perfect opening; studying her face until she comes to the conclusion that’s probably written all over it.

“Oh,” Glimmer says, not unkindly. “I get it.”

“Do you?” Because how could she?

Glimmer nods. “I think so. Maybe not from experience, but… I understand.”

It goes unspoken, the real issue. But Adora knows Glimmer’s picked up on it. Not all of it—Glimmer doesn’t need to know _why_ this has been bothering her so much, but by the look she gives Adora, she’s got the gist.

“Me and Bow… we’re here for you, Adora. You don’t have to do _everything_ on your own. We’re your friends.”

“It’s not that, Glimmer, I just—“

Glimmer cuts her off with a hand on her shoulder. She hadn’t known what to say, anyway. “It’s okay. You can… feel whatever you need to feel. But we’re here when you need us.”

Adora doesn’t know what else to say. Glimmer picks up on this, hugs her and leaves.

She sits there, staring at the door. It doesn’t feel like a mistake. It feels like a punch to the gut. She can recover from a punch to the gut.

So she spends the rest of the day exercising, training to get her mind off of things, hoping that she’ll be too tired to think about anything when she’s ready to turn in. Only she still thinks at night. She thinks as long and as hard as she has every other night and days later, she can’t take it anymore. It’s midnight, and she’s jumping out of bed.

She pulls on her shoes in a hurry, leaves through the window. She just has to get _out_. Her thoughts make her feel strained, claustrophobic, and the fresh air of Bright Moon calms her thoughts, if only for a while. She wanders the grounds, restless. Spending another night awake in bed is too much. Especially now, when all she can think of is the weight she misses at the end of her bed, the gentle touch of a tail, curled around her ankle, or the soft purr that never failed to lull her to sleep.

Hot tears sting at the corners of her eyes. She keeps walking, away from Bright Moon.

The woods grow thicker and thicker around her, and she keeps going. As if she can run from those thoughts. But she knows where she’s going, and the knowledge makes her feel stupid and weak. The path she knows leads her right through the door of the Crystal Castle, right into that chamber where she’d looked her biggest fear in the face and let it rip her to shreds all over again.

When she arrives, she isn’t surprised to find herself alone.

“What were you expecting?” she asks herself miserably, and knows the answer.

Her voice echoes in the empty room.

“Was it me?”

Adora nearly jumps out of her skin at the voice, spinning to catch the pair of multi-colored eyes starting back at her. Relief and anxiety was over her in equal parts, and she’s so suddenly overwhelmed by Catra’s presence that she just stands there, gaping.

Catra scoffs. “Close your mouth, you look like a fish.”

Adora laughs. A bark of a laugh, really, that sounds a little hysterical to her ears. “Hey Catra,” she says, ignoring the way her voice breaks, “long time no see.”

Catra rolls her eyes, her lips thinning into a smile. “Hey, Adora. We bump into each other in the weirdest places, don’t we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the wait, y'all! I kinda... started writing something else. But I hope you enjoyed, and keep your eyes peeled for more some time in either the near or distant future! :)

**Author's Note:**

> My first foray into the She-Ra fandom and let me tell you—I'm into it.
> 
> I'm not sure how long this'll be, but here's hoping we get somewhere with it, right?
> 
> You can also find me on tumblr [here](https://bazaarwords.tumblr.com/), and twitter [here](https://twitter.com/_gaychel).


End file.
